What's Flash Player good for?

[BoyOfDestiny]

Being a flash web designer myself, I would simply say that Flash sites are simply full of life rather than plain ol' HTML. They are without doubt designed for the people with a more creative outlook. It would be not rite to call it bad. It can be thought of as analogous to modern art. If it takes time to load thats becoz of bad design and more importantly slow connection.

FLash is a thing of the future, just as Ubuntu has bought freedom and flexibility to the OS scenario, Flash emancipates the conventional web design. Thats the way i look at stuff.. but others may see different!

If you make a flash site (especially let's say navigation), you should at least provide an html alternative for users that cannot access/use it.

[gonçalo]

I installed it just because it annoyed me not to be able to see what was behind that missing plugin thing.

But.. I start black listing almost every embeded flash content with adblock and flashblock.

I may be sick in the head. One thing that books and paper still have better than the web is that that aren't any pop ups besides the ocasional silverfish.

[helpme]

Being a flash web designer myself, I would simply say that Flash sites are simply full of life rather than plain ol' HTML. They are without doubt designed for the people with a more creative outlook. It would be not rite to call it bad. It can be thought of as analogous to modern art. If it takes time to load thats becoz of bad design and more importantly slow connection.

FLash is a thing of the future, just as Ubuntu has bought freedom and flexibility to the OS scenario, Flash emancipates the conventional web design. Thats the way i look at stuff.. but others may see different!

Flash sites are evil and a thing of the past and here's why:
- You can do almost anything you can do with flash with other, open tools
- Flash is slow
- Flash breaks navigation
- Flash hides content form search engines
- Flash makes c&p impossible
- Flash makes sites inaccessible
- Flash is a closed format, not a standard. Every linux user can feel the effects of this.

Seriously, building flash sites is about the dumbest things one could do, both from a practical, as well as from an ethical, as well as from an economic standpoint.

[hotbrainz]

Like i said before...flash is not for sites like ebay or for any commercial enterprise for that matter, it is not for people who spend serious time over the internet.

It is quite similar to trying to compare documentaries to action movies. Flash sites make sites look good. And as far as alternative HTML is concerned, I provide a basic HTML page to start with which has flash download link and then you get to see the good stuff

End of the day, its all about perspective. You cant remove action movies now from cinemas if they cant be seen in offices now can you. What i mean is your ideas are absolutely true in a business environment but even bling bling and eye candy is big business with the new gen..

[Jucato]

Let's just take note that not all web pages are put up just to provide text-based information. Some are solely for entertainment purposes or for audiences that would rather have flashy (no pun intended) designs. In some ways normal HTML/CSS cannot deliver the needed experience.

Just as it is illogical or unnecessary to build a fully flash-based sites to display info such as, for example, technical manuals (imagine if an online man pages version was available, but displayed entirely in flash), it would be equally foolish and tedious to build a site about animation purely using HTML.

While Flash is bulky and at times slow, it does serve its purpose. It just so happens that some (probably most) Linux users have no need for such things that Flash can deliver.

[adamkane]

homestarrunner is the example of how to use Flash. It's creative, fun, and non-commercial, but I think it is the exception that proves the rule that Flash is used to push extra content that the viewer doesn't want.

My brother is an experienced web programmer, and he used to say that Flash is poorly documented and poorly implemented. He's happier that he doesn't have to program with it anymore.